I understood that. What I meant to say (apologies if that was unclear) is that if you think we're getting close to a dead end, you should be more rather than less surprised at signs of significant further progress, no?

Continuing with the physical movement metaphor, if I believe that the train I'm on will stop at the next station, I'll be more surprised at the fact that we're still accelerating, compared to the person next to me who's not sure if this is a local train or an express train.

Generally speaking, the lower my prior probability of continued progress, the more I should be surprised by the lack of slowdown.